“Grieving does not work like a to-do list,” author Jonalyn Fincher explores the space we need to grieve and how we find our way there.
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Last year, when a friendship was crumbling, I finished writing a user manual for grief.
Aubrie Hills, a friend and thanatologist (technical talk for a person who helps people die well) blended her experience and degrees with mine. Invitation to Tears: A Guide to Grieving Well was born.
I wrote and edited like my healing depended on it. We talked about grief being a tiny, personal sailboat that we board alone, braving the wind, pushing ourselves from the dock to see what swells will sweep us into another life: the life after this tragedy.
And my heart found its way, through crafting chapters on “What Our Faith Can (and Cannot) Do”, “Mourning with Friends” and one of my favorites “Reaching Shore”. I learned to honor the slowness and beauty of grieving well.
A favorite passage from Chapter Three “Learning Your Language for Loss”
Fluidity and unpredictability are part of grief. Speed is not. Grief is much like the waves in the ocean; they suddenly wash over us.
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Pain calls us like a lover would, at inopportune moments—when we are busy at work, when we are entertaining friends, when we’re in a crowded movie theater. And, like a lover, pain makes a mess of our plans. Grieving is never tidy. The pain stops us just when we need to run to the store to finish shopping in time for dinner. The tears spring to our eyes and we brush them back, almost ferociously, in an effort to keep the conversation rolling. Grief makes us lose our train of thought, but we press forward to finish the conversation.
Grieving does not work like a to-do list, simply because humans cannot work through pain so methodically. In every aspect of our fast-paced lives, we are trained to collect a to-do list, and then dutifully (and speedily) begin to check it off. Many grief books give the five states of grief, simply laid out, which may lead to the assumption that grieving is simply a sequential to-do list. Some grievers mistakenly assume that eventually all the boxes can be checked off and the grieving finished. Any step-by-step method to overcome pain might be helpful along the way, but grief promises no fast lane.
Fluidity and unpredictability are part of grief. Speed is not. Grief is much like the waves in the ocean; they suddenly wash over us. Years after a death something very simple, like finding a hairbrush or receiving mail with our loved one’s name, can make us feel a bubbling emotion or a physical surge similar to a panic attack. Jane Kenyon describes a wave of grief delivered to her while unpacking her friend’s gravy boat. In “What Came to Me” she talks about something as small as a hard, brown dollop of gravy sitting on the porcelain lip.
I grieved for you then
as I never had before.
Once we gear up for the slow work of grief, we may find some well-intentioned people more distracting than helpful. Speedy expectations of friends or our church community’s “Christian” phrases can dishonor what we are facing. Well-meaning friends may approach with comments like “At least they are no longer suffering,” “Isn’t it about time [to move on]?”or “Isn’t it beautiful—they are in eternity with Jesus!” We get wind through friends that acquaintances are wondering, “How is he doing with the loss?” which may be a veiled form of, “How long is he going to be upset about this?”
Within the comforting walls of the Church, we’ve stripped ourselves of a language for loss. What David and the psalmists spoke fluently, we have unlearned. We do not know how to sit with someone in his or her suffering without trying to fix it.
A word to comforters: Provide the tissues within reach in case they need to use them—but do not pull the tissue out for them. While watching their faces contort or flood with tears, just let them cry. Death is a horrible reality. If we are honest in front of God and with ourselves, it hits us like a punch to the stomach, knocking the wind out of our bodies and leaving us doubled over in more confusion. Honor pain with your own steps into the pain.
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We cannot begin to grieve if we are our own first critics. How much compassion do we have for ourselves when suffering? What about our friends? We cannot freely share our pain if every suffering statement finds a response in someone’s curing, fixing attempts at comfort. We each must re-learn how to speak about and respond to loss.
When Jonalyn’s son was two, he would re-tell any personal injury, drumming up an audience to live through the tragedy he just endured. And being quite articulate, we were always in for a show. “Do you remember?” he would begin. “I bumped my head. Bam! Right here. Look, right here. Bang!” He replayed it for his parents, step by painful step.
If Jonalyn said, “But how do you feel now? Any better?” he would briefly nod only to explain it again. Prompting him to feel better was evidence to him that he wasn’t fully understood. Any listener would then be subjected to another re-enactment. When a new person came to visit, he would claim this new audience to tell his story again. Two-year olds are like their parents, we do not want curing comfort; we want caring comfort. We want attentive listeners who care to hear the details of our suffering.
To learn more about how to grief well and allow your friends their own grief journey, see more at Invitation to Tears: A Guide to Grieving Well.
After two very long years grieving my wife and getting used to being a single dad, I was finally able to start putting the worst behind me. BUT … one of the most sobering things I discovered was that despite feeling like I successfully navigated through my grief, I am no better at helping others with theirs. Since my wife died I’ve known four other men who suffered a similar fate. I reached out to them with offers of ‘wisdom’ to share but each time was rebuffed. I realized that it wasn’t my place. Just because I’d been there, I… Read more »
Jon,
What an amazing point… just because we have grieved horribly does not mean our path through suffering will look the same as another’s. We used the metaphor of sailing through the storm to illustrate that in Invitation to Tears. No path is the same, for the waves are constantly changing.
Hey Jonalyn – love this piece, thankyou for kindly sharing
“…it takes its time and needs its time” – Kristie – totally agree. Have just engaged the grief that I have suppressed for decades, but what is nice about it, is that it is MY grief. I honour it and don’t have to pretend it’s not there, or needs to be ushered away, or mistake it for something else. I feel I am recovering a part of myself, as painful as it is, and that part is very grateful that I honour this sacred grief.
Oh congratulations Chris, I think recovering a part of yourself is exactly the work of grief…acknowledging what is lost and incorporating that experience into our story…rather than suppressing it and pretending that it didn’t matter. Pain changes us, loss shapes us…to deny that is only robbing us of freedom.
Chris,
I have also been facing old grief that was buried. It is the brave man and the courageous woman who can face suffering, without shame. Thank you for your comment.
It’s always darkest before the dawn.
I love this piece. I think it’s very often that we want to say the right thing…we want to be supportive…but we often rush people to a place they’re not prepared to be yet. And when I’m in the seat as the one grieving…I find myself rushing to relieve the pain…to get to the resolved point as soon as I can. Though this is not how grief works…it takes its time and needs its time.